“Now tell me quietly and in your own words how all of those panties appeared in your room“

I’ve been sleeping for 12 hours over the past week…SO TIRED. It’s not like I’ve been doing anything strenuous of late. Could anime be…sapping my strength? Sucking my soul out? DRAINING MY BRAIN POWER? …I can live with that, I suppose. The things I do for animu! *dramatic hand flourish*

Well, midterms are over for me and my hand feels like it’s going to fall off. YAY!!!!!! In more Persona related topics, THIS WEEK’S EPISODE. So much DORAMA! …I don’t think I’ve even seen Yu this emotional.

VR. Naoto has examined the threat letter Yu received in the mail telling him to stop saving people, but she found no clues. The investigation team is worried now, but as Naoto apologises for later, her main concern isn’t Yu’s safety, but instead catching the culprit. Later, Yu takes care of Nanako because she’s ill and they talk about how Yu is going back to the city in the spring. Things go great until Dojima hands Yu another threat letter and reads it over his shoulder. Dojima takes Yu to the station to talk about everything and Yu tells Dojima the truth. Obviously Dojima doesn’t believe him and makes Yu stay at the station overnight.

At Junes, Yosuke gives Kuma a cell phone and shows him how to use it by calling Yu. However, Nanako picks up instead and says that Yu got a weird letter and went to the police station. She hangs up after she goes to answer the door, leaving Yosuke to worry about Yu. Meanwhile, Yu watches the Midnight Television from a TV in the room he’s in and Nanako appears on it. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.

A TV in an investigation room? Do they torture the suspects with bad reality shows until they confess?

On the phone with Yukiko (or at least I think it was Yukiko), Naoto explains that Nanako appeared on TV indirectly since she was an anonymous student that a politician spoke highly of after visiting her school. Yosuke, Kanji and Kuma appear at the station and inform Dojima and Yu that Nanako has gone missing. Naoto explains that the serial killer took her over the phone and Dojima runs off. Adachi refuses to let any of them leave and then Naoto shows up and says that they should explain the situation just in case the audience hasn’t been paying attention or are too busy flipping desks at the fact that Nanako was kidnapped. She explains that Nanako opened the door by herself and mentioned at the Inn that she never opens the door for strangers. Also, she mentions the speediness that they were all kidnapped, meaning that the culprit had a TV right outside the door and somehow managed to carry it around inconspicuously. With those clues, Yu pieces together that the culprit was as a local deliveryman.

Remember that politician guy Namatame who had an affair at the very beginning of the anime that you’ve most likely forgotten about completely? Well they figure out that he’s the culprit. Adachi is peer pressured into letting Yu go and then there’s an intense car chase that ends in Dojima crashing and Namatame disappearing. In the truck they find a TV and Namatame’s diary which talks about saving people in another world and lists all of the victim’s addresses and names. Yu has to be held back from jumping inside the TV and inside the truck, he finds a letter to him from Nanako congratulating him on scoring the highest in his class and containing a handmade ring. Dojima asks Yu to save Nanako and the episode ends with the team breaking into Junes and heading inside the TV.

‘Impressed’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel this week about Persona. Putting the especially elevated derpy animation to the side, this week’s episode had all the right things in all the right places. This week leaves the cheery humour of episode 20 behind and steamrolls right into the most high-octane action sequences combined with heart-pounding drama. I believe now is as good a time as any to state the obvious: things just got serious. This is one of the few plot-relevant and serious episodes that takes place in the real world as opposed to the TV world. You almost start to forget it’s a case that’s affecting the real world too with all the focus on fighting in dungeons. Seeing how the real world is in shambles because of this kidnapper just adds all the more weight to the situation.

Having Nanako kidnapped hits a bit of a weak spot too. She’s basically sunshine and puppies in human form, which makes it all the more depressing to see her kidnapped. Everyone’s reaction was priceless too. Remember when their idea of stopping the killer was lame stalking and very vague warnings? This time everyone lost their shit and chased down the killer in police cars. A step up on the epic scale, if you ask me. Both the game and the anime made me feel exhilerated as I sat through these scenes. I knew who the killer was, but the way they revealed it in the anime still made me feel the same sense of impending doom. After they said who it was, I felt like I would claw the stuffing out of my couch if they didn’t sprint out there and save Nanako immediately. Such tension! The pacing and amount of explanation was great, although I’m curious how the people who haven’t played the game feel about the pacing and the reveal of the villain. Karakuri touches on the fact that the game hints at Taro much more. Like, HE’S AN NPC. The anime is more subtle, but at the same time I can see how you could roll your eyes at it being a random character that hasn’t been on the show before.

Aside from the crazy car chase and all the drama, another thing that made this episode so emotionally-charged was Yu. If asked to describe Yu in 3 words, I would probably say blunt, caring and stoic. He’s not exactly known for showing emotion. However this week. YO, THIS WEEEEEEEKKK. This week he went wild. He screamed, cried and acted rashly on several occassions. He’s usually the calm, voice of reason. You know things are morbid when even he starts to break down. It just makes the drama feel more real. Everything was really tight this week, although I’m not without a few minor complaints. Can I complain about Adachi for a second? I love Adachi but I find his voice to be as annoying as hell. It’s squeaky and piercing at the same time to the point where it is almost physically painful. It not only kills the mood, but it makes me dislike him – a character I was quite fond of originally in the game. I like his english voice more (I believe it was Johnny Young Bosch). One more thing…if that was their idea of fleshing out Naoto’s social link I will punch someone in the face. DON’T BE A DICK, OKAY? Okay. I’m glad we’re clear people who decide what happens in the show who definitely read these posts and listen to me.

NOOOOOOO NANAKO!!!!! That bastard. Well, I knew this was coming, but I think the animated version has me was more emotional than the game version ever did. Like I said before, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yu that emotional about anything before. In hindsight, it’s heartwarming how much he cares for Nanako, but I guess now isn’t exactly the right time for heartwarming feelings. The addition of finding the ring and note there was excellent for adding drama as well since it just adds to that feeling of regret Yu is most likely experiencing. I so feel bad for him and Dojima at this point, but I absolutely love what this tragedy is doing with their characters.

If the anime did one thing excellently, it was that it downplayed the whole Namatame thing so that the culprit came out of nowhere. I swear, the game mentioned it so incessantly that even people who didn’t know about the culprit probably caught on that the whole affair thing was more plot important than just some random news story. Another thing this anime did well was the way the characters figured out that the culprit. Persona is pretty bad for it’s long winded conversations in the game, but this explanation didn’t seem too bad. It was too the point and included the necessary information. I don’t know what anyone else thought of it, but I was satisfied.

Well, Persona can only go forwards and onwards from here. I still don’t have a clue how many episodes are going to be in this anime, but it looks like OC was right about the last episode being the last comedy episode since this episode was all serious. I’m no too worried about the pacing anymore since I’m confident that they can finish this in the next episode and then save the last couple ones for the true ending stuff. They would also have time to throw in that final battle preparation that always happens and have Yu talk to everyone again for the ultimate Personas to happen. So yep, good stuff from here!

Preview: Have you ever wondered what Heaven looks like? (Also my 2nd favourite track from the OST should be making an appearance here)

11 Responses to “Persona 4 – 21”

The time for goofing around has well and truly come to a close. If any episode signaled the end of silliness for a series it was this one. Despite this being the episode where Nanako gets kidnapped, it’s the best episode of the series, with every little moment of buildup coming together so beautifully.

The fallout between Yu and Dojima made a lot of sense. Did Yu honestly think Dojima would believe the story about the Persona World? We’ve seen this so many times before: People won’t believe anything until you show them cold hard proof. *cough Toshio cough* From Dojima’s point of view, Yu was still unwilling to trust him. Given how much Yu has shown his good nature, I’m sure Dojima knew that Yu wasn’t doing anything wrong, but it definitely frustrated him that Yu didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth (which was quite to the contrary).

I admired the part where Yu seriously told Dojima everything, despite how stupid it all sounded, because he wanted to tell him everything plainly. There was a real sense of dread and danger this episode, with Yu plain in the cross hairs. It was great to see the real panic and desire to save Nanako that very second out of Yu. Thanks to all the focus she has gotten it’s a desire that should be shared by the viewers as well.

Thank god Naoto was there to beat Adachi in terms of wordplay. They really didn’t have time to goof around and let that idiot obstruct them. The important thing was piecing together the facts and figuring out the culprit from them. Just like the rest Nanako opened the door and was captured. But unlike the others she would only open the door for a select group of people. Yukiko lives at an inn, Kanji at a store, same for Rise, and frankly Naoto was expecting the culprit.

The car chase was pretty good considering you don’t see many cars at all in the series. A really intense moment for everyone since Dojima is trying to rescue his daughter and now Namatame has the police on his tail. The one criticism I’d have for this episode and the series, is the villain, Namatame Taro. I mean… He just seems kind of tacked on, and not as developed or foreshadowed in the series, as nearly everything else. He just seems like a plain old cliché crazy man.

“Onii-chan can you brush my tee-” “OH GOD NO! NOOOOOO!!!” “…?” LOL. I can definitely say you picked that up from Nisemonogatari.

This episode was so interesting! It was Naoto’s time to shine, as she calmly analyzes the situation for Yu and the others. Will this show really end with episode 25??! I don’t think they can wrap it all up with the remaining 4 episodes.

They can wrap it up enough by episode 25. I checked the dungeon list, and there’s only three left. They can wrap this one up in an episode, maybe with the first half of 23 as well. Next, they can spend the rest of their time on the final dungeon, which results in the normal ending. Finally, do an OVA for the epilogue dungeon, which leads to the true ending (and boosts DVD sales).

I figured this might be the plan from the start, and seeing where we are now, its either do it like this or rush the ending.

@BlackBriar: Yeah, no one’s gonna believe something like that. I tried telling him the truth in the game too, and it was really frustrating to be brushed off so easily. Of course, as you say, from Dojima’s perspective he’s just being a sensible human being. People don’t just jump into TVs.

I was wondering how people would feel about Taro XD I mean, how was anyone supposed to guess it was him if we never saw him? Kind of weird. Even Mitsuo had more foreshadowing in the game…you got to talk to him on the streets like Taro!

Nisemonogatari ftw =w=

@Rakuen: Technically you can fit 3 dungeons in, although there are just as many important moments that happen OUT of the dungeon at this point. It’s pretty plot-heavy too. They could just fit the normal ending by 25 episodes, but they really might have to put that true ending in an OVA…I guess we’ll see. I’m hoping for an OVA now that you brought it up.

Awwwwww, not Nanako! I mean, I figured this had to be coming since the beginning, but I still didn’t want it to happen. I sure hope the gang can save our delightful little Loveline cosplayer in time! It’d be a shame if this were one they actually failed at… 🙁

AWESOMENESS. I always loved the sheer sense of style that Persona 4 had (never played the game, but got addicted to the anime), and this episode carried that style into something I’ve never seen portrayed so well in anime: a car chase. The music, the pacing, the emotion, Dojima using the e-brake to swing around on the bad guy’s tail… I’m speechless. I was also surprised and rather impressed that Yu showed emotion- remember, this is the first time someone he considers close to him has been victimized, so it makes a ton of sense. The whole “reveal” scene at the police station was very well played, and heightened the senses of both fear and “We gotta save her!” that came along with the deducing of the culprit’s identity.

They did the car chase surprisingly well. …Which is both awesome and weird considering that you’d think that a car chase would be the last thing Persona would be known for. Yep, this episode had a lot of great things in it!

OC: ‘Impressed’ doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel this week about Persona.

That’s how I’m feeling about this episode right now. I mean, Risette in a bikini is nice and the Amagiya Inn ep was funny with how Yu was acting, but damn this ep was intense and engaging. How they included Nanako in the previous couple episodes made it all the more dramatic and passionate for both Yu & me as a viewer when she was kidnapped. Hearing Yu say “fuck” (as Commie subbed it) was pretty surprising; he’s very anxious and nervous at this point in the series.
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OC: I love Adachi but I find his voice to be as annoying as hell.

If I could put electrical tape on my TV and shut him up, I just might’ve done it.
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Kara: If the anime did one thing excellently, it was that it downplayed the whole Namatame thing so that the culprit came out of nowhere. I swear, the game mentioned it so incessantly that even people who didn’t know about the culprit probably caught on that the whole affair thing was more plot important than just some random news story.

This is definitely one of the better Persona 4 episodes. It gets so many things right without being too rushed. Seeing Yu have emotional reactions still gets to me because of how monotone he was in the beginning of the series.